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On Friday 12 July 2024, the Newcastle United owners announced that Amanda Staveley would step down from all her positions with the club, including as one of the Newcastle United directors.
News that was met with a wide spectrum of reactions from Newcastle United fans.
Many greeting the news with astonishment, not seeing it coming at all.
Whilst a minority of supporters greeted the club’s official announcement with no surprise whatsoever. Their view that this was all but guaranteed to happen as we approached three years post-takeover, Amanda Staveley having played her role in helping to get the deal done and then assisting in the tricky immediate period following the departure of Mike Ashley.
Ashley who had ensured that this was a club that had been diminished to a skeleton staff, with no recognisable high-level executive team to run Newcastle United day to day, nor a proper Newcastle United board to operate above that.
Instead, a quite ridiculous state of affairs whereby Lee Charnley was the only officially named executive helping to run the club day to day AND the only person making up the Newcastle United board! Named as a single board member to satisfy the legalities, whilst Ashley relied on certain members of his Sports Direct inner circle to remotely oversee his NUFC interests.
Now it has been revealed though by Companies House, that back in July, only 13 days after Amanda Staveley’s departure, the owners made it five Newcastle United directors once again.
Swapping in Roger Thornton on 25 July 2024 to fill the gap left by Amanda Staveley.
Filings are usually shown a little bit after the club make any changes, however, I have no idea why this one is only showing two and half months later.
The only explanation appears to be that the club wanted to keep the news secret, for whatever reason, until this third anniversary of the Newcastle United takeover.
A very belated club announcement (see below) following on from this Companies House update.
This is now the current position with the Newcastle United board.
Starting with the day of the takeover, these are the Newcastle United board appointments and resignations, as per the filings at Companies House that are available for the public to see:
Amanda Staveley – Joined the Newcastle United board on 7 October 2021.
Jamie Reuben – Joined the Newcastle United board on 7 October 2021.
Lee Charnley – Left the Newcastle United board on 7 October 2021.
Yasir Al-Rumayyan – Joined the Newcastle United board on 2 December 2021
Majed Al Sorour – Joined the Newcastle United board on 12 May 2022 and left on 14 December 2022.
Majed Al Sorour – Left the Newcastle United board on 14 December 2022.
Abdulmajid Ahmed Alhagbani – Joined the Newcastle United board on 23 February 2023.
Asmaa Mohammed Rezeeq – Joined the Newcastle United board on 23 February 2023.
Amanda Staveley – Left the Newcastle United board on 12 July 2024, as confirmed by Companies House update on 22 July 2024.
Roger Thornton – Joined the Newcastle United directors on 25 July 2024, as confirmed by Companies House update on 7 October 2024.
As you can see, at the moment, the Newcastle United board now has five members currently, those are:
Roger Thornton, Jamie Reuben, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Abdulmajid Ahmed Alhagbani and Asmaa Mohammed Rezeeq.
So the new addition will be representing the Reuben family side of things, along with Jamie Reuben. The club now owned 85 percent by Saudi Arabia PIF and 15 percent by the Reubens.
As you can see above, three Saudi Arabia PIF representatives currently on the Newcastle United board, NUFC Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan as well as Saudi Arabia PIF officials Abdulmajid Al-Hagbani and Asmaa Rezeeq.
Looking from the outside, it appeared that as well as being very much the public face of Newcastle United, Amanda Staveley had ever increasingly become the link between the UK side of things with Newcastle United and the Saudi Arabia PIF.
Amanda Staveley regularly reported as travelling back and forwards between the two countries, no doubt updating and coordinating with NUFC Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan and others who are part of the Saudi Arabia PIF side of things.
The question always was, for me at least, whether it would be Jamie Reuben now taking on a far more public and hands-on role at the club?
With Jamie Reuben remaining in the background and this new Reuben family appointment seemingly not set to fill that part of Amanda Staveley’s apparent job description, maybe another addition to the Newcastle United directors in the near future?
Newcastle United announcement – 7 October 2024:
Newcastle United have appointed Roger Thornton to the club’s Board of Directors.
Born in South Shields, Roger is Head of Property at Motcomb Estates Limited, an asset management company that focuses on a portfolio of global office, retail, hotel and leisure assets for the family of Newcastle United co-owner, Jamie Reuben.
Roger retains a keen interest in his native North East and has played a key role in recent developments in Newcastle city centre, including the transformative Pilgrims Quarter project, as well as supporting property matters for Newcastle Racecourse.
He also has strong family links to the Magpies. His grandfather, Ben Sullivan, was an administrator who moved from Lincoln City to relaunch the Newcastle United Development Association in the mid-1960s.
Ben played a key role in supporting ground improvements at St. James’ Park over many years, including securing funding to build the existing East Stand structure which opened in 1973.’

 
